Karameikos - Vaults of Pandius

The Demography of KarameikosHALF-ORCS ANDHALF-OGRESThe history of Karameikos is one ofinvasions, conquests, pillages, and wars. Asyou can read in the section of this articleregarding the country’s history, thehumanoid races – gnolls, goblins, orcs, andthe like – were often protagonists of thoseevents; from the Great Beastmen Invasion oftwo thousands years ago to the more recentskirmishes against the orcs in the CruthLowlands. In some areas of the country thehuman population had to submit tohumanoid rule at one time or another, andmany humans had to live as their slaves. Stilltoday, sometimes humanoids take prisonersduring their raids and keep them as slavesfor their own purposes or to sell them later.All those cases of involuntary interactionbetween humanoids and human men andwomen opened the way to innumerablerapes and forced matings. Interfertility isnot always possible between humanoidraces and humans, but at least between orcsor ogres and humans it is known to be. If awoman becomes pregnant during hercaptivity with a humanoid tribe, sometimesshe is killed outright; if the woman isparticularly valuable to the tribe, the baby iskilled or abandoned as soon as he or she isborn. Otherwise, if the woman is allowed togive birth to the baby and to assist him orher, the child is most often raised to be aslave like his or her mother, unless the childdemonstrates some quality or skill muchappreciated by the tribe, in which very rarecase he or she is tolerated as a near-equalmember of the horde.On the other hand, when a womanbecomes pregnant with a humanoid childbut not in captivity (most often as the resultof a rape during a raid or pillage), the childis doomed to be an outcast in theKarameikan society. Many victims of thismisfortune abandon their child, bringingtheir infants to charitable religiousinstitutions (mostly manned by priests ofValerias, either independently or on thebehalf of the Churches of Karameikos orThyatis) where the priests take care of thebaby. This practice is not supported withits own institutions by the Church ofTraladara, and is mostly shunned byTraladarans, in particular in the rural orborderland areas; there, a mother pregnantwith a humanoid baby usually abandonsthe child in the wilds (where some luckybabies are picked up by the druids or byother benign beings) or commits suicidebefore giving birth.Prejudice and suspicion runs high in ruraland borderland areas against anyonelooking like an orc or a humanoid (as halfogresand half-orcs do). Such individualsare not likely to find any acceptance inthose places, unless they performexceptional deeds or services in favor of thecommunity. Most often they are shunned,persecuted, cast out, or hunted down, notmuch differently than what happens withnormal humanoids. Those feelings tend tobe weaker near and in larger and morecosmopolitan towns and cities, and whereThyatian presence is stronger. There, evenif the half-humanoids are not easilyaccepted as well, their presence is toleratedand they can earn a living as bodyguards,laborers, mercenaries and, in the worstcases, as thugs and beggars.22THRESHOLD: The Mystara Magazine Issue #1